Baseball, Byzantium, Bayern And Brexit

Confidence is low in the Home Improvement system discussed back in March. Being of cautious nature, I have waited patiently for the 'logical constraint' to be triggered, and thus so far, have had just two bets, but the constraint is meant to improve an underlying profitability still further, not eliminate big losses.

Over the last ten seasons (2006 to 2015), the raw system had made 47.69 points from 2,089 bets and the constrained system had made 83.76 points from a more manageable 1,017 bets.

2016 has so far been a disaster, with the raw system down 36.05 points from 116 bets. I am testing the waters with very small stakes opening with one winner on Saturday (Toronto Blue Jays) and a loser yesterday (Oakland Athletics). There is no selection today.

To the Euros now, and a record setting day for France versus Iceland yesterday. No team had ever previously scored more than two goals in the first half of a Euros knock-out game and a thank you to James for pointing out that my Tweet about the team missing most penalties in a shoot-out but still winning was incorrect by a mere 1,000 years.

James' went on to suggest that the USA:

 ...then lost 3-1 in the final against the Byzantine Empire. The year 991 threw up a lot of "giant killings."

but I suspect he was just being silly - the Byzantine Empire, who played under the name Byzantium (FIFA Country Code BYZ), never extended far enough for them to qualify for the CONCACAF Gold Cup!

Euro Semi-Finals tend to be close affairs. Of the last ten, six have been drawn, of which four have finished 0:0, and all-time, 50% of the 26 semi-finals have been drawn after 90 minutes.

Fascinating stuff, almost as interesting as noting that only one club (Bayern Munich) has more players remaining in the Euros than Crystal Palace who have five. I am petitioning UEFA to add an additional Champions League place to recognise this achievement. It seems far more deserving than a place awarded for 'fair-play'.

On to politics and I have slapped a few pounds down on Article 50 not being triggered in 2016 at 1.5. It's in the money, trading at 1.31 / 1.36 right now, but I'll let it run. It's heartening to see that in the market for the date it will be triggered, of the three options available, in 2016, January to June 2017 and after June 2017, the latter is favourite, although the 1.7 matched on Betfair looks a little ambitious at this time. A year is a long time in politics, but the more time that elapses from the non-legally binding referendum result, the more chance that common sense will prevail and parliament (which is sovereign) will decide that actually Leaving would not be in the national interest. Oxford Philosopher David Rodin explains clearly here one fundamental flaw with the non-legally binding referendum:

Interesting times, and another prominent Liar Leaver, Nigel Farage, announced today that he is standing down as UKIP leader to "spend more time with his family". His family are reportedly devastated. With all these rats deserting the good ship Brexit, one might be excused for thinking it is sinking.